Tuesday, May 24, 2005

Recently there were bomb blasts at 2 theatres in Delhi when they were screening “Jo Bole So Nihaal”. The reason, this movie and its name was allegedly bringing disrespect to the Sikhs and their religion. So what did they do, use a bomb and injure 100’s of people and killed a couple (I suppose this act was allowed). One woman from Delhi had to say that the protagonist was shown to have sex and drink alcohol and Sikhs don’t do that in real life (pretty funny huh! I guess they still believe in the bugs and bees story).

Same things happen with other religions, lyrics have to be changed because the lyrics of an item number contain name of a Muslim god (Aatish). (The god never felt bad about it, why are people feeling bad about it.)

Names of the main characters, who are lesbians are to be changed because there cannot be lesbians in Hindu Religion named Radha and Sita. Women cannot act in movies with baldheads. (I guess you can have porn stars named Yudhisthir and Arjun, but you can’t have this… it’s a strict no no!!!)

Shahrukh lifts his little finger for peeing and points at the church and creates a stir in the Christian religion. (It’s a god damn joke… take it and leave it… why carry it too far… that too out of the toilet into the court-room)

How Lame!!! All of this is utter crap; it’s a case of things being taken too far. Religion is way too sacrosanct for things like these to affect it. One can’t do anything to a religion just by having names, lyrics and all other forms of verbal and non-verbal communication. Religion is way too pure to do that. It is religion that guides us in our lives, but I guess evolution of human being has taken things too far and right now we are the ones that are guiding religion to wherever we want it to be.

I have a strong feeling that India has a set of “Fundamentalists” in every religion be it Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Christians or whoever. The job description of these fundamentalists is to make wrong inferences of quotes quoted in the religious books and brain wash people’s minds with these wrong inferences. These “fundamentalists” should be exiled, banished and worst come worst should be executed.

We are living in a world that is divided as per nations and not religions. Its thus but natural that nationality over-rides any other thing in this world. Country comes before anything else. For the rest of the world India is one whole and not broken down into various religions. It is an Indian who is ruling the roost in almost every sector of the world and not any “Hindu or Muslim”. But if this is the case why do we still pick up petty fights over religions and what would be the impact of these fights on our economic and social environment. All these raise a lot of questions in my mind:

- Is it because of the lack of this nationality spirit in us that India still happens to be developing and not developed? - Are we fighting for which god / religion is right instead of fighting for what is right?- Do these fundamentalists drive India? Is there no unity amongst people?- Don’t people think and act rationally when they are brain washed by these jerks?

I don’t have answers to any of them and I don’t know if I am ever going to find them or not. But there is one thing for sure, as long as I am an Indian, “The Indian” precedes all of my other identities of Hindu -> Brahmin -> South Indian. I will always be an Indian and for all other identification reasons (if applicable) will I be the rest of them.

This reminds me of the pledge that we used to take in school. This pledge will always remind us that we are Indians, and we should always act like one.

Pledge

India is my country; all Indians are my brothers and sisters.

I love my country and I am proud of its rich and varied heritage. I shall always strive to be worthy of it.

I shall give my parents, teachers and all elders respect and treat every one with courtesy.

To my country and my people, I pledge my devotion. In their well-being and prosperity alone lies my happiness.

Mr.Iyer- I suggest you speak to Mr.Sunny Deol and ask him to keep up the good work, tell him to also speak to Dharam paji, who would then tell all these fundamentalist that ek ek ko chun chun ke marunga, chun chun ke and the icing on the cake would be when the Central Goverment declares this movie a TAX-FREE one.N u better take care of Pa ji too

Well root cause of all this is the manner in which politics has brain washed people and power bought money, money bought people an d people buy other peoples sentiments--- these things hapend everywhere but the degree of venting is diferent---so if u wanna do some good, go out and start Radical Governance